The Digital Era

An article by our Graphic Designer, Natalie Fearn

Keeping your business social media up to date can be a task in itself. It takes time to plan out your message, your target audience and, most importantly, find something relevant to post about your business.

At The Media Group we are lucky to have a wide scope of areas within the business about which we can post on social media. There’s our design work, events, video and training – all of which have their own areas so we keep our audiences up to date.

With over one billion people online worldwide, people are increasingly looking for British based products and services. It has become essential for small or upcoming businesses to embrace the web and go digital (W. Knight, Think Digital First (2015)).

The cost of having an online presence is low, which is surprising considering its benefits. Tools such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest have enabled small businesses to widen their audiences, their availability and accessibility globally by just a simple ‘Google Search’ from their potential consumers. It’s a process that is much more effective than just an advert in the local newspaper.

Having all of these tools at your fingertips (or at the click of a mouse, some would say) is great, yet each social media platform comes with some level of a continual maintenance commitment. On average, The Media Group posts a blog, case study or news article on our business website at least once per month. However, it could be argued that other platforms are much more ‘spontaneous’ such as Twitter or Instagram, which we as a company use when we have an event, showing the progress and success of each of them.

The importance of social media posts for your business is to:

Share a variety of content related to your business or recent event

Try to post within ‘office hours’ to have the best reaches for your business

Use social media platforms suitable for your business and suit each post to that specific platform – such as Twitter using hashtags to network with others who use the same hashtag (e.g. #UKCoachingAwards for the UK Coaching Awards was used 30th November 2017 to connect all who attended and managed the event).

Businesses may find that having access to social media platforms online means that just one person can potentially reach hundreds or even thousands of people simply by writing a ‘post’, however does that reach necessarily make it a more effective method of communication than the old fashioned face-to-face meeting? The argument is never-ending.

From experience within The Media Group, we have gained more projects from our current clientele, as well as bringing in new clients, by face-to-face meetings by our Account Managers. There is something more valuable about getting to speak to somebody in person rather than the use of an email or social media post.

Going back to English Language A-Level research, the communication in the first person is instant, conversations are addressed at that present moment and there is less leeway for deep thought about responses. Usually, meetings are well planned, with topics and projects on an agenda; both parties have time beforehand to plan for their approach to the meeting.

With electronic communication, whether it is on social media or email, there may be hesitation. People do not have to respond to written communication straight away, if at all. Written communication can have its downfalls or ‘bluntness’ when read by the receiving end – which is why you should think about how you want yourself to be perceived when writing an email. When it comes to communicating with clients, you don’t want them thinking you have woken up on the wrong side of the bed that morning!

There are pros and cons to both methods of communication, which is why I think it is worthwhile for us here at The Media Group to have a balance of both to reach out to clients and opportunities for the future in order to get the most effective outcomes.